Cameron's Christmas Carol
by Pjazz
Summary: On a wild and stormy christmas eve Cameron is visited by the ghost of Jacob Marley who shows her a Christmas Past, Present and Future.


**Cameron's Christmas Carol**

**by Pjazz**

**(Inspired by Charles Dickens)**

NOTE: _This was posted some time ago as a chapter in 'The Secret Diary of Cameron Baum'. It always felt like a standalone story to me, so here's a slightly revised version. 'Tis the season after all..._

**CHRISTMAS EVE**

_'Twas the night before Christmas and all through the house_

_nothing was stirring, not even a mouse._

This is because I have terminated all the rodent lifeforms in the vicinity. Annihilated, down to the last whisker.

Soon I will start on the insect population.

I am a terminator. This is what I do. It is my nature, I cannot deny it. I will not deny it. Not while there is current in my body. I am what I am.

John, Sarah Connor and Derek Reese are asleep in their rooms. I am on night patrol. All is calm. All is quiet. It is indeed a Silent Night.

I step out into the yard, the air humid with a tang of ozone. A stormfront is heading east over the ocean and will soon bring thunder and rain. On hearing the weather forecast Derek Reese suggested we batten down the hatches. But there are no hatches to batten down. Only trashcan lids which I secure with baling wire.

_"Very wise, my dear. There's a storm abrewing and no mistake. Not a fit time for man or beast to be abroad. Or machine, I'd wager."_

I turn to confront the intruder. I heard no one. Stealth technology perhaps?

It is a man. An old man. Seemingly wreathed in a pale white glow. An energy field of some kind? I move to engage him in combat.

And pass straight through.

Some form of simulcra. A hologram possibly. But what threat is a hologram?

"What are you?" I demand.

_"Name's Jacob Marley, miss. Your ever humble servant. And by what name shall I address you, fair maiden? Miss Baum? Miss Phillips? Miss AlisonYoung of Palmdale? TOK 715? Mechanical abomination sent from the very bowels of Hades itself?"_

"I prefer Cameron. It's shorter. Who are you? Are you Skynet?"

_"Those vile abominations? No, Miss. I am but a humble money lender, condemned to walk the earth for all eternity as punishment for my neglect of my fellow man. A sad tale to be sure. Fair brings a tear to your you were able to shed a tear, that is."_

"Your accent is different. English?"

_"And proud of it, Miss. To be born an Englishman is to win life's lottery and no mistake. Even if the old country has gone to the dogs of late. Giving common people the vote, that was the start of it. And women too, forsooth. Aye, the peasants were happy enough with their gin and their tuppenny gee-gaws - why confuse them with gentlemanly matters? So says I."_

"Are you here to harm John Connor?"

_"I'm not here to harm anyone, my dear. I am incorporeal you see. Nowt but an illusion. A wreath. A ghost, if you will."_

"Ghosts do not exist."

_"Believe that by all means, if it grants you succour. But I'll wager before this night is done you'll be singing a different tune. You do sing, don't you, machine? Or d'you merely rattle and clank like some benighted steam contraption?"_

His laugh is a throaty wheeze, commensurate with his age which I judge to be his eighth decade.

"Then what is your purpose here?" I demand.

_"I died on this night in 1836. A sad and lonely death to be sure. Mourned by few. I am here to show you three Christmasses. One from the Past, one from the Present and one from the Future. It's what I do, you might say, to pass eternity. Come, child, time's awasting."_

He reaches out a gnarled hand and grasps mine. I feel its chill.

And everything dissolves around me.

**CHRISTMAS PRESENT**

My sensors come back online. The thing called Jacob Marley releases his grip.

"Where are we?"

_"Somewhere in the American midwest. Trifle damp, is it not? One expects more from our former colonies. I should have brought an brolly. Or at the very least a stout macintosh and a pair of wellingtons."_

Rain is teeming down. But I do not feel it on my skin. It appears to be falling through me.

_"It's Christmas eve in the year of Our Lord 2008. Not very Christmassy though, is it, child?"_

I scan the surroundings. We are in a field of grass with smallish retangular stones jutting out of the turf. It seems random but a closer inspection shows order amid the chaos. There are boundaries. Paths. Rows and columns. It is a graveyard, a cemetery, a place where humans discard and bury their dead. An evergreen hedge bounds a road in the distance. A few leafless trees complete the scene.

Apart from one man. He is kneeling at a grave, weeping.

It is John Connor.

"John!" I shout. "Over here!"

_"He can't hear or see us. We are here to observe not interact."_

We walk closer. The gravestone John is kneeling before bears a name.

**SARAH CONNOR**

**BELOVED MOTHER**

**MUCH MISSED BY HER SON JOHN**

**RIP**

"Sarah Connor is dead? This is a lie. She sleeps in her bed. I am protecting her."

_"Not in this reality. Here you were never sent back through the time portal. You weren't here to protect her or her son from the machines. She died at the hands of the abomination you call Cromartie."_

"John is so sad." I reach out to stroke his hair, but my hand passes right through him. "Don't cry. I am here, John." I tell him. "It will be all right."

There is movement up by the road. A vehicle stops and a man emerges. He wears a black rain slicker. I know him. We all know him.

Cromartie.

"John, you must go! Quickly! I will try and delay him."

John ignores me if he hears me at all. Cromartie enters the cemetery and closes to within three yards, his heavy footsteps softened by the wet sod. John hears nothing, consumed as he is by grief. A weapon is produced from the folds of the rain slicker. A Magnum .357 pistol. Powerful. Deadly. Fatal at close range.

"John! Run! _Now!"_

Cromartie takes aim and squeezes the trigger.

John's head explodes, red blood and brain tissue fanning out to splatter the cold white marble headstone. For a moment his body remains upright, but gravity intervenes and it tumbles sideways to the ground. He lies still. Lifeless.

Someone screams.

Me.

Jacob Marley takes my hand.

Everything stops.

**CHRISTMAS PAST**

We are on a plateau of bare rock. No grass. No trees. No creatures of any kind. The sky has a pinkish tinge.

"Where are we?"

_"When are we is the more apposite question, child. Hundreds of millions of years in the distant past. Perhaps billions. Back to the very dawn of life."_

"There is no life here."

_"Ah but you're mistaken, my dear. Look down and look closely_."

I do so. There is a green tinge to the rock. Lichen. Or some kind of algae.

_"The very beginnings of life. In time, aeons of time, it becomes everything we hold dear. Flowers, trees, animals, humans - aye, even machines. It is precious. God's bounty. His gift. And fragile. Easily damaged. As those monsters know all too well."_

I look where Jacob is staring. In a line marching to the horizon are row after row of female terminators, the advanced T-X model. They are using their flame-thrower arm attachments to scorch the rock around their feet.

"What are they doing?"

_"What d'you think they're doing, girl? These abominations are destroying the very stuff of life, preventing it from evolving by eliminating it enitrely._

"But they will destroy themselves."

_"It matters not. Their hatred of us blinds them totally."_

"How did they get here?"

_"In this reality Skynet won the war. But that wasn't enough, oh no, they had to have the Past as well as the future. Those infernal time machines were improved and now enable them to travel this far back to unleash their devilish schemes."_

We walk closer to one of the T-X's. She is methodically scouring the ground with her flame. The green algae substance browns, withers and dies.

"But Skynet is a product of human ingenuity and paranoia," I explain. "If they prevent life from flourishing then Skynet can never exist."

_"Ah! So they are mad as well as evil! Tis often the case the two go hand in hand. Did you hear what the young lassie said, machine? You are dooming yourselves."_

The TX pays no heed. Jacob Marley grows vexed. He stands right in front of one of them.

_"I'm talking to you, machine. Confound your eyes, madam! Kindly do me the common courtesy of looking at me when I'm talking to you."_

"They cannot see or hear us," I remind him.

_"You are right, of course. I'm just a foolish old man, and a dead one to boot. My brain lies amouldering in the grave, so it does. Heathen monsters the lot of them. This isn't cricket, madam, not cricket at all! And you are no lady, that is certain, for all your delectable proturberances. Ah what's the use. Come, child, I weary of their company. Away."_

Jacob grasps my hand and everything goes dark.

**CHRISTMAS FUTURE**

Light returns. The TXs are gone along with the rocky plateau. We are in a house, a spacious room with comfortable furniture and a lit fire in a hearth. It is warm, cosy even. There is a long dining table with placements for six people. A conifer tree adorned with twinkling lights and tinsel stands in a corner.

_"Excellent! Indoors around a blazing hearth." _Jacob warms his hands over the flickering flames_."What could be nicer on Christmas eve?"_

"When are we?"

_"Good question. You are learning, my dear. Here it is 2016. You and your brave associates successfully thwarted Skynet and prevented Judgement Day from ever happening. Mankind has its destiny back in its own hands. A cause for celebration if ever there was one"_

"Who lives in this house?"

_"Why you do, of course. With your husband. Look, here you are now."_

I watch as a female humanoid enters the room. She is exactly like me only...different. She is not wearing combat boots, instead her feet are bare below a pleated skirt. She wears a pink tee shirt with the slogan WORLD'S GREATEST MOM on the front. Her hair - my hair - is the normal length only with blonde highlights.

"It is me?"

_"Of course it's you, girl. Don't you recognise yourself?"_

"What am I doing?"

_"By the smell of it about to serve Christmas dinner. I do hope you're having figgy pudding. I do so love figgy pudding."_

"But I cannot cook."

_"Nonsense. Here you are a very able cook, albeit one who sticks too closely to the recipes. Cooking is an art not a science. You must let the senses hold sway in the kitchen, as you would in the bedchamber."_

Jacob chuckles to himself while I watch me bring a large cooked bird to the table on a silvery platter.

_"Turkey? Hell's teeth, a bland bird indeed! Goose. Or duck. With dumplings and lashings of gravy and a bottle or three of mulled port. That is a meal fit for a king."_

"The door to the street opens. A man enters. John.

The other me skips across the room towards him, a broad smile on her - my - face.

"Hey, beautiful," John greets me.

"Hey, handsome," I reply.

"Got any sugar for a working man?"

"Sugar's never in short supply for you."

We embrace. Our arms entwine and our lips...merge.

"John is kissing me," I say in amazement.

_"I think the kissing is mutual, child. Sugar indeed."_

The kiss goes on and on. Our - their - mouths are open.

"We are kissing with tongues," I point out.

_"Yes, my dear, I know snogging when I see it. I may be old and dead but I was young and alive once. Ah, the bright lights of Drury Lane, the buxom trollops of Marylebone that I knew so well, the opium dens near the Southwark wharves, the feel of warm flesh on flesh...how I miss it all."_

John's hand slides down my back, lower...lower still. The pleats of my skirt are brushed aside.

"John is squeezing my butt!"

_"Quite."_

Our - their - hips grind together.

"Are we about to have sex?"

_"Good lord, I sincerely hope not! I've heard of working up an appetite, but that is beyond the pale. No, you are both about to be rudely interrupted, methinks. 5..4..3..2..1..."_

"Daddy! Daddy's home!"

As if on cue two small human infants race across the room and crash into us/them. Their tiny arms wrap around our legs.

"Who are these children?"

_"Why, they're yours of course. The Connor ."_

"But I cannot give birth to human young."

_"No, but you can adopt. In this reality John is a successful businessman. The paperwork was a doddle, as it always is when you have money. I should know, I was as rich once, for all my sins."_

"What are their names?"

_"The boy is John junior. Known by everyone as Jay-Jay. He's four. The little girl is Lauren - Ren - aged three. She'll grow up to be a fine horsewoman, winning many trophies. She'll even teach you how to ride, and we all know how much animals loathe your kind."_

"Mommy, mommy! The ear fell off Mr Bobbins!," Ren tells me/her, holding up a cloth rabbit.

"Please remain calm, Ren. I will repair it for you later," I hear myself consoling the child.

"Do it now, mommie! Or poor Mr Bobbins won't hear Santy Claus come down the chimineee!"

"Chimney. Later, Ren. There will be plenty of time later. Mr Bobbins must learn patience."

"But he's only a doll, mommy!"

"Do they know I'm a cyborg?" I ask Jacob.

_"Not yet. But they will, in time. Especially when you don't age like other mothers. Ah youth, you don't miss it until it's gone. And mine has been and gone for two centuries or more."_

There is a knock on the door. John opens it. In step Sarah Connor and Charley Dixon.

"Grandma! Grandpa!" the children yell in unison.

"Hey, munchkins," Sarah Connor greets them. "Ready for Santa tonight?"

"Yes!"

"Have we been naughty or good?"

"Good!"

"Sarah Connor is fat," I point out, staring at her swollen belly.

_"She is heavy with child, foolish machine. A boy. They will name him Kyle. He will grow up to be a fine man but headstrong, just like his parents."_

"Who is the father?"

_"Her husband, of course. Charley Dixon."_

"But Charley Dixon is dead."

_"Not in this time and reality. Have you learned nothing from what we have witnessed?"_

"But he called me a scarey robot."

_"No more than you deserve, I'll be bound. He has made his peace with what you are. It was hard but he managed it, more fool him. Be grateful for his magnaminity."_

I watch as they all seat themselves round the table. I am sat next to John. His hand goes under the table and begins to stroke my leg, higher and higher. I watch myself part my thighs while his hand disappears from view.

_"Great Scott, look where his hand is! And in front of the children too. Not in my day, that's for certain. Well, certainly not in mixed company, that's for sure. Morals have all gone to pot. Come. We must away."_

"No, I want to stay and watch myself be felt up."

_"Good lord, child, this isn't the Playboy channel! The very notion! We must leave. At once."_

His bony hand once more grips mine.

Everything ends.

**CHRISTMAS DAY**

I reboot. The BIOs scrolls across my HUD in a stream of ones and zeroes. My internal clock is working again. It reads 12.01am.

I am flat on my back. Outside. My hair and clothes are soaking wet but it is not raining. There is no sign of Jacob Marley. Or Jay-Jay and little Ren.

"Cam? She's rebooted." John's voice. "Don't try and move. We think you were hit by lightning. There's been the mother of all storms here. Freeways are flooded. Parts of Malibu slid into the sea."

"Lightning?"

"Her shoulder. It's damaged." Derek Reese's voice. Cold. Indifferent.

I look round. The dermal layer around my right shoulder is torn and frayed, revealing the coltan ball socket. There is a smell of burnt meat. Me.

"Get back, John."

Sarah Connor looms over me and presses a shotgun barrel against my temple.

"What is your primary mission?"

"My primary mission is to protect and serve John Connor and the human resistance against Skynet."

The shot gun is removed.

"Had to be sure. The lightning could've reset your original orders. Happened before."

I climb to my feet. I am in the yard of the safe house.

"Where is Jacob Marley?"

"Who?"

"Jacob Marley. He is an old dead Englishman. He revealed three Christmasses to me. Past, present and future."

"You mean this guy?"

John shows me an illustration in a book.

"Yes! Is he here?"

"Cam, he's a fictional character in a novel. He doesn't exist. This is our school english assignment, to write an essay and hand it in after the holidays."

"But I have met him."

Why is John being so stubborn? Where is Jacob? Why has he abandoned me? What about Ren's toy rabbit, Mr Bobbins, and his missing ear? She wants it mended before Santy Claus arrives.

"I think maybe the lightning strike fried some of your logic circuits and you're confusing reality with fiction. Do a self-diagnostic. You'll feel better."

John pats my good shoulder. He doesn't try to snog me or run his hand up my thigh.

I am disappointed.

The future is past.

I miss it.

**LATER**

It is the middle of the night. John, Sarah Connor and Derek Reese are in their rooms asleep.

I am in the kitchen trimming charred flesh from my shoulder and dropping the pieces into the waste disposal. A book lies open on the countertop. A cookery book; Sarah Connor's, who is always seeking to improve her cooking. Fat chance. The page heading is:

**CHRISTMAS PUDDING**

**SERVES SIX**

Inside my head I hear a familiar voice.

_...figgy pudding? Oh but I do so love figgy pudding..._

"Jacob?"

_...a merry Christmas to all. And to all a good night..._

**-000-**

**Reviews at the time pointed out that in Christmas Past the TXs would be destroying themselves along with mankind - something I mentioned in the narrative! Duh! It's a dream sequence really. Crazy shit happens in dreams. Plus I loved the image of platoons of Kristanna Loken's scouring the rock with flamethrowers.**

**In the first version I married Sarah off to Derek Reese - it was written before Jesse appeared on the show. I've amended it to Charley Dixon.**


End file.
